Dustforce is all about managing your momentum as you complete a series of …

Like all great platform games, Dustforce is a game about managing a character's momentum. Unlike most platform games, though, the game has a relentless focus on maintaining that momentum in a single, perfect, unbroken line; a focus that's equal parts wonderful and maddening.

Dustforce

Ostensibly, the primary goal in Dustforce is simply to find the various bits of debris that litter the floors, walls, and ceilings of its sprawling 2D levels. You can do so either by running over them or using one of two broom-whipping attacks (which are also necessary for taking out an occasional dust-encrusted enemy). To reach all these dusty bits, you've got a zippy little double jump as well as a limited ability to run a short distance along walls and ceilings. All these skills are introduced in a tight, playable tutorial rather than being dripped out over the course of early levels. It's a nice nod of respect from a game that expects the player to pick up the necessary skills on their own.

Traversing the well-thought-out levels quickly becomes an almost balletic experience. The bits of sweepable debris are laid out not just as a goal but also as a guide, gently nudging your brain towards what to do next. Dash, double jump, wall run, jump again, wall run, jump and run along and angled ceiling out into the void, jump back to catch an overhanging wall, jump off and let your momentum carry you as you attack a floating dust ball, double jump off the last attack to the next platform and dash on... It sounds ridiculous written out, but after a few levels, these beautiful sequences play out automatically at an almost subconscious level.

Your auto-pilot is going to have to get pretty damned refined if you're going to get the most out of the game. Roughly half of Dustforce's 50 or so levels are available to be played at the outset. For the rest, you'll need to earn a key by turning in an absolutely perfect performance on an earlier level. This means not only sweeping up every bit of debris hidden in the level (some of which can be easy to miss on a quick first run), but doing so in a smooth, unbroken chain that allows for only a few seconds of idle time between each bit of sweeping.

Dustforce gameplay

It's a demanding system in which a single mispressed key can ruin a good minute or two of work and have you reaching for the restart option again and again. The best analogy I can come up with for the experience is that of learning a tough solo on a musical instrument, which requires a lot of practice before you're finally able to pull off the entire thing almost instinctively. Even in that case, though, only the most attentive and nitpicky listener would be able to suss out a single note that was held sliiiightly too long. Dustforce serves as that nitpicky observer as you play—a strict German-accented instructor screaming "AGAIN!" after every missed note.

As frustrating as this system is, though, I left each level feeling like I was a better player for being forced into it. Going through the same areas over and over again, with the necessary routes fresh in my mind, I learned to appreciate the perfect placement of every bit of debris as it guided me along the one, true path through what initially seemed like a sprawling, disorganized array of floating blocks.

The fist-pump-inducing success after a perfect, two-minute run was all the more satisfying for all the failed attempts that came before. (Though the bubble was quickly popped by Steam leaderboards showing hundreds or even thousands of players that had improved on my perfect run with significantly quicker completion times.)

Still, there are limits to how much I could tolerate Dustforce's demanding structure. As the game progressed, I ran into more and more levels where I just wasn't willing to put in the work required to perfect an especially tough series of acrobatic, perfectly timed jumps. Even further along, there were a few levels that I simply couldn't complete despite hundreds of attempts and a generous checkpoint system.

I'd imagine you'd have to be a bit of a masochist—or a true platforming savant—to force yourself to the very end of Dustforce. But even if you're just puttering around in the levels you are able to complete, it's nice to engage with a platforming game that's willing to push at the edges of your existing skills, forcing you to improve them in the process. It's a game that's not content to let you be content with yourself, and for that it's definitely worth playing.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.